A 16-year-old boy was shot just outside a Bronx playground next to an elementary school Thursday, police and sources said.
The teen was shot in the buttocks near the entrance to the PS 49 Willis Avenue playground basketball courts near the corner of E. 140th St. and Alexander Ave. in Mott Haven around 4: 25 pm, they added.
Two male shooters fled on foot and threw a gun about five blocks away, police sources said.
A local man heard multiple shots from a nearby store. As he approached the scene, he saw the teenager lying on the front steps of the school.
“Everybody was just standing around looking at him,” the man, who only wanted to be identified as Ben, told the Daily News. He “was bleeding from the leg. He is lucky to be alive.”
The victim was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he was expected to recover. There were no immediate arrests.
“It’s horrible,” said Marysol Ortiz, a mother who lives near the playground. “I have two young children here, so for something to happen right next door, it’s sad. It’s sad that it happens so often.
The shooting came amid a bloody week for the city’s schools, prompting the New York police to increase their presence in Manhattan in an effort to stem the violence.
On Tuesday, three gang-related shootings rocked students in Upper Manhattan, which first saw a 17-year-old boy shot at Martin Luther King Jr. High School on the Upper West Side.
Cheick Coulibalys, 19, was arrested while trying to flee in a yellow cab and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon, authorities said.
The daily news flash
Week days
Catch up on the top five stories of the day every weekday afternoon.
Shortly thereafter, a 16-year-old bystander and a 27-year-old bystander were struck by bullets outside the Harlem Renaissance School in East Harlem.
Coulibalys was a student at East Harlem High School, the sources said.
Bullets then flew at 105th St. and Park Ave., and four shell casings were found at the scene, but there were no reports of injuries near a third school. There have been no arrests in the last two incidents.
The New York police have requested multiple resources from other boroughs to help in the chaos in Manhattan, Patrol Chief John Chell said Tuesday.
Officers from the transit, housing and school safety units were deployed to areas police believed were at risk of further shootings. The mobilization continued until after school on Wednesday.
That day, a 14-year-old boy stabbed a 15-year-old boy twice in the leg at the Inwood Academy of Leadership charter school.
All the victims survived the attacks.
